Eleventh Circuit Panel Sounds Off On Evolution

[Brown]

Story here (among other places):
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-evolution16dec16,0,3710616.story?track=tothtml

The Cobb County (Georgia) School Board heard from parents who urged the Board, "Preserve our faith." Thereafter, the Board had stickers printed saying "Evolution is a theory, not a fact," and had the stickers placed in science textbooks.

A Federal District Court judge ordered the stickers removed.

The matter is now on appeal to the Eleventh Circuit, and oral arguments were heard yesterday. One of the judges made some interesting remarks during the oral argument:

Judge Ed Carnes of the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals said that the lower court judge had misstated facts in his ruling, overstating the influence religious protests had on the school board's actions. He also said the words on the sticker are "technically accurate," and that the Cobb County school board was justified in singling out the theory of evolution for comment.

"From nonlife to life is the greatest gap in scientific theory," Carnes said. "There is less evidence supporting it than there is for other theories. It sounds to me like evolution is more vulnerable and deserves more critical thinking" than other subjects.

The irony of the story is that those bringing the appeal, who want to tell students that "Evolution is a theory, not a fact," claim to be championing skepticism and critical thinking. Welcome to Bizarro World.

One wonders what "other theories" Judge Carnes has in mind. Evidence supporting evolution is arguably greater, both qualitatively and quantitatively, than the evidence supporting various theories in astronomy, geology, chemistry and physics. But no stickers for them.

Now, the comments made during oral argument are not necessarily reflective of any judge's position or how the ruling will come out.

 

[TragicMonkey]

Kent Brockman: I've said it before, and I'll say it again: Democracy simply doesn't work.

I think the root of the problem is that Western Civilization has left us with two important legacies: democracy, and the notion that the truth is out there and only needs work to discover it. Unfortunately, a great many people get the two confused, and begin to think that the universe is subject to the popular vote. If x number of people feel a certain way, then surely it must be so? Only if you're talking about passing laws, not if you're talking about discovering natural laws. The only solution is improving education...but it seems, in a twist of bitterest irony, that education is the first thing under attack. Oh well, perhaps the fundies are right, and human nature is inherently flawed. Not skewed for sin, but skewed for stupid. I'm amazed we managed to progress as far as we did, really.

 

[Kerberos]

Wonderfull, the judge doesn't understand the difference between evolution and abiogenesis.

 

[Charlie Monoxide]

Isn't the biggest problem in thid ID/creationist foofara is the semantics of the definition of the word "theory"?

I have a theory on the Easter Bunny. Does it carry the same weight of the "Theory of Evolution"? Heck no. My Easter Bunny theory is not falsifiable (among other accepted scientific criteria for theories).

Why aren't the ID'ers and other god-folk getting up in arms about the "theory of gravity", "theory of relativity", etc?

Charlie (theory of theories is just a theory, not necessarily true) Monoxide

 

[TragicMonkey]

My Easter Bunny theory is not falsifiable (among other accepted scientific criteria for theories).

Well, actually, I hate to break it to you, but by means of an Acme Rabbit Trap I bought from an E.Fudd off eBay, I have conclusively proved that the Easter Bunny did, in fact, exist. Up until last Easter, anyway.

Incidentally, rabbit-meat burritos aren't half bad.

 

[drkitten]

Isn't the biggest problem in thid ID/creationist foofara is the semantics of the definition of the word "theory"?

I think a bigger problem is the semantics of the word "evolution."


As pointed out here, the judge in this discussion doesn't seem to understand the difference between abiogenesis (which is controversial, has no single dominant theory, and doesn't have much evidence available beyond the obvious "well, life obviously exists now) and evolution which is only controversial among idiots and the misinformed, is the single most influential theory in biological sciences today, has tremendous amounts of evidence for it, and is even accepted in modified form by its very opponents, which is why they make such a huge fuss about "macroevolution" and "kinds."

 

[Melendwyr]

"From nonlife to life is the greatest gap in scientific theory," Carnes said. "There is less evidence supporting it than there is for other theories. It sounds to me like evolution is more vulnerable and deserves more critical thinking" than other subjects.

(Quote not technically from Brown.)

That man is an idiot. The Theory of Evolution, as dealt with in the field of biology, has nothing to say about how life arose. Darwin's mechanisms provide the first-ever way to infer how life could arise from non-life in any scientifically comprehensible manner. But biology only cares about the insight it can give us into how life came to be in its current state, with all of the diversity and species richness that implies, and why life is so elegantly adapted and extraordinarily awkward at the same time.

(edited for clarification)

 

[TragicMonkey]

..and why life is so elegantly adapted and extraordinarily awkward at the same time.

I prefer to think of my life as "elegantly awkward".

 

[hammegk]

.... evolution which is only controversial among idiots and the misinformed, ...

You are wrong, and your mama still wears combat boots ...

... and is even accepted in modified form by its very opponents, which is why they make such a huge fuss about "macroevolution" and "kinds." ...

That, and the fact species clearly exist only in the fossil record.

 

[Cleon]

That, and the fact species clearly exist only in the fossil record.

Yep, no species alive today...No siree...

 

[Brown]

(Quote not technically from Brown.)
That man is an idiot. The Theory of Evolution, as dealt with in the field of biology, has nothing to say about how life arose. Darwin's mechanisms provide the first-ever way to infer how life could arise from non-life in any scientifically comprehensible manner. But biology only cares about the insight it can give us into how life came to be in its current state, with all of the diversity and species richness that implies, and why life is so elegantly adapted and extraordinarily awkward at the same time.

Based upon the news report, I would not be quick to call Judge Carnes by any unpleasant names. He graduated from Harvard Law School with distinction, and usually one doesn't get onto the Federal Circuit without having some brains.

Chances are that he is, like many judges, possessing "a layperson's education" in science. This is why I question what "other theories" he might be talking about, and why he thinks the evidentiary basis for evolution is shakier than, say, theories of solar system formation or theories of electron orbitals (both of which are taught without having stickers attached to textbooks).

In addition, as you and Kerberos point out, the judge seems to be making a mistake that many lay people make, namely confusing the formation of life with the evolution of life. Even assuming that "life from non-life" is a part of evolutionary theory, and even assuming that the evidence that life can spontaneously form is less than iron-clad, it does not follow that evolution as a whole can be dismissed as "theory, not fact."

I want to stress again that what a judge says in oral argument is not necessarily indicative of the way a judge plans to rule. It is common practice for many appellate judges to pose hard questions to an advocate to see how the advocate responds.

 

[Manny]

Excellent analysis, Brown. It also may be worth noting that Judge Carnes was the 11th Circuit Judge who spanked Roy "10 Commandments" Moore most soundly. He may yet rule disappointingly in this case, but he's no fundie drooling at the chance to stick it to the secularists.

 

[Melendwyr]

Based upon the news report, I would not be quick to call Judge Carnes by any unpleasant names. He graduated from Harvard Law School with distinction, and usually one doesn't get onto the Federal Circuit without having some brains.

If his intelligence varies wildly depending on whether he's evaluating statements he has no interest in or statements he deeply cares about, he's an idiot. Having brains doesn't make a person less likely to behave idiotically; if anything, it increases one's vulnerability.

Chances are that he is, like many judges, possessing "a layperson's education" in science.

How did this man get though college without ever learning what the Theory of Evolution is? I would expect even those people who never took physics or calculus to be able to state what Newton's laws of motion are.

I want to stress again that what a judge says in oral argument is not necessarily indicative of the way a judge plans to rule. It is common practice for many appellate judges to pose hard questions to an advocate to see how the advocate responds.

Is it standard practice to ask stupid questions? Because that's what we're seeing here.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

Excellent analysis, Brown. It also may be worth noting that Judge Carnes was the 11th Circuit Judge who spanked Roy "10 Commandments" Moore most soundly. He may yet rule disappointingly in this case, but he's no fundie drooling at the chance to stick it to the secularists.

Manny, Brown, thank you both. The points Brown made would never have independantly occured to me, and the fact Manny brought to our attention, I would never have looked up.

Posts like those are why I come here.

 

[hammegk]

Yep, no species alive today...No siree...

I agree, my "... the fact species clearly exist only in the fossil record." makes no sense to me now, either. I was trying to point out the difficulty in defining where and when a new species arrives on the scene, but that didn't quite do it. The fossils do demonstrate that such changes occur, but we haven't seen such unequivocable speciation events in nature or the lab.

 

[Zep]

I agree, my "... the fact species clearly exist only in the fossil record." makes no sense to me now, either. I was trying to point out the difficulty in defining where and when a new species arrives on the scene, but that didn't quite do it. The fossils do demonstrate that such changes occur, but we haven't seen such unequivocable speciation events in nature or the lab.

Indeed we haven't, little Kent Hovind! Your demonstration of your understanding of the process and time-scales involved in evolutionary theory means you should go right to the top of the class!

And jump off.

 

[ImaginalDisc]

I agree, my "... the fact species clearly exist only in the fossil record." makes no sense to me now, either. I was trying to point out the difficulty in defining where and when a new species arrives on the scene, but that didn't quite do it. The fossils do demonstrate that such changes occur, but we haven't seen such unequivocable speciation events in nature or the lab.

This contention indicates an inability or unwillingess to reseach, or even Google. There is a list of speciation events observed in nature, with references, examine them individually if you like.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/speciation.html

Now, if you'd like to attack the merit of these observations, go ahead. However, they have been observd. If I misunderstand you, and you would perfer to define "unequivicable" as "not doubted by anyone at all" then I am afraid no such speciation event will ever occur.

 

[Schneibster]

I agree, my "... the fact species clearly exist only in the fossil record." makes no sense to me now, either. I was trying to point out the difficulty in defining where and when a new species arrives on the scene, but that didn't quite do it. The fossils do demonstrate that such changes occur, but we haven't seen such unequivocable speciation events in nature or the lab.

http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB910.html

1. New species have arisen in historical times. For example:
   * A new species of mosquito, the molestus form isolated in London's Underground, has speciated from Culex pipiens (Byrne and Nichols 1999; Nuttall 1998).
   * Helacyton gartleri is the HeLa cell culture, which evolved from a human cervical carcinoma in 1951. The culture grows indefinitely and has become widespread (Van Valen and Maiorana 1991).
   * Several new species of plants have arisen via polyploidy (when the chromosome count multiplies by two or more) (de Wet 1971). One example is Primula kewensis (Newton and Pellew 1929).
   
2. Incipient speciation, where two subspecies interbreed rarely or with only little success, is common. Here are just a few examples:
   * Rhagoletis pomonella, the apple maggot fly, is undergoing sympatric speciation. Its native host in North America is Hawthorn (Crataegus spp.), but in the mid-1800s, a new population formed on introduced domestic apples (Malus pumila). The two races are kept partially isolated by natural selection (Filchak et al. 2000).
   * The mosquito Anopheles gambiae shows incipient speciation between its populations in northwestern and southeastern Africa (Fanello et al. 2003; Lehmann et al. 2003).
   * Silverside fish show incipient speciation between marine and estuarine populations (Beheregaray and Sunnucks 2001).
   
3. Ring species show the process of speciation in action. In ring species, the species is distributed more or less in a line, such as around the base of a mountain range. Each population is able to breed with its neighboring population, but the populations at the two ends are not able to interbreed. (In a true ring species, those two end populations are adjacent to each other, completing the ring.) Examples of ring species are
   * the salamander Ensatina, with seven different subspecies on the west coast of the United States. They form a ring around California's central valley. At the south end, adjacent subspecies klauberi and eschscholtzi do not interbreed (Brown n.d.; Wake 1997).
   * greenish warblers (Phylloscopus trochiloides), around the Himalayas. Their behavioral and genetic characteristics change gradually, starting from central Siberia, extending around the Himalayas, and back again, so two forms of the songbird coexist but do not interbreed in that part of their range (Irwin et al. 2001; Whitehouse 2001).
   * the deer mouse (Peromyces maniculatus), with over fifty subspecies in North America.
   * many species of birds, including Parus major and P. minor, Halcyon chloris, Zosterops, Lalage, Pernis, the Larus argentatus group, and Phylloscopus trochiloides (Mayr 1942, 182-183).
   * the American bee Hoplitis (Alcidamea) producta (Mayr 1963, 510).
   * the subterranean mole rat, Spalax ehrenbergi (Nevo 1999).
   
4. Evidence of speciation occurs in the form of organisms that exist only in environments that did not exist a few hundreds or thousands of years ago. For example:
   * In several Canadian lakes, which originated in the last 10,000 years following the last ice age, stickleback fish have diversified into separate species for shallow and deep water (Schilthuizen 2001, 146-151).
   * Cichlids in Lake Malawi and Lake Victoria have diversified into hundreds of species. Parts of Lake Malawi which originated in the nineteenth century have species indigenous to those parts (Schilthuizen 2001, 166-176).
   * A Mimulus species adapted for soils high in copper exists only on the tailings of a copper mine that did not exist before 1859 (Macnair 1989).

 

[Schneibster]

Hammy, I have yet to see you make an argument that isn't answered, in exhaustive detail, in TalkOrigins. These aren't "equivocal" events; they're documented in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Go ahead, tell me about how the Mimulus that's adapted for high-copper soil that lives on the tailings of a copper mine that didn't exist before 1859 "isn't a species." It doesn't interbreed. I'm waiting.

 

[hammegk]

Hammy, I have yet to see you make an argument that isn't answered, in exhaustive detail, in TalkOrigins. These aren't "equivocal" events; they're documented in the peer-reviewed scientific literature. Go ahead, tell me about how the Mimulus that's adapted for high-copper soil that lives on the tailings of a copper mine that didn't exist before 1859 "isn't a species." It doesn't interbreed. I'm waiting.

Chihuahuas & Great Danes don't interbreed either. You, your cohorts, and talkorigins, think that the sleight-of-hand from evolution as a fact -- what we see as alleles change -- and The Theory as a "fact" goes unnoticed, or if noticed you blather about how dumb and uneducated the noticer is. Carry on.

Zep, I suspect I've forgotten more about geology, and for that matter, The Theory, than you'll ever learn. I also suspect I've read, re-read, and understood as much of the talkorigins just-so-story as most here.

In the final analysis, for materialists The Theory equals Truth. Idealists and even illogical dualists are not quite as certain.